1. Technical Field
The disclosed embodiments generally relate to methods and systems for sending material to a recipient. More particularly, the disclosed embodiments relate to methods and systems for sending scanned material to an email address extracted from a business card.
2. Description of Related Art
Businesses today operate in fast-paced environments where the transfer of information is continuously occurring. Commonly, the fastest and most cost-effective mode of data transfer is via email. Often documents are scanned and emailed to an appropriate third party who can have the information at their disposal in a matter of minutes or even seconds.
This transfer of information in the office is facilitated by networks of computers and so-called multifunction devices. These multifunction devices incorporate printers, faxes and scanners that, coupled with servers running the proper software, create functionality to convert paper documents to electronic form and vice-versa. These devices also are instrumental in the transfer of information from one individual to another. Furthermore, these networked devices are able to connect personal digital assistants, cell phones and other hand-held devices. It is therefore important and valuable to extract business information in a networked environment to store, display and transfer the information where it is most useful.
One example of a simple source of information is business cards. Business cards are used universally by people to identify themselves and provide contact information to other people. Exchanging business cards is a traditional business practice for people to convey important information. The printed information on a business card may include a combination of identification and/or contact information; such as name, address, phone number, and/or email address; and non-important business information; such as logos, graphics, annotations, and/or slogans. Notwithstanding the fact that the cards contain both types of information, a business card is still considered a critical vehicle to conveying the information needed in establishing and/or maintaining business relationships.
With the advent of digital devices such as personal digital assistants, electronic address books, or personal computers, the conversion of the printed information on the business card to an electronic format has become a necessary business tool. The conventional tools of a scanned business card recognition system, often used to import the printed information to digital devices, are labor-intensive and prone to error.
Electronic business card readers are also utilized to convert the printed information on the business card to an electronic format. Examples of electronic business card readers include those commercially available from companies such as CardScan and IRIS. Other multifunction scanners, such as the Xerox Visioneer DocuMate™ scanner series, include business card scanning as one of many possible features. These card readers or scanners also include associated software which interprets the information from the business card. In conventional scanned business card recognition systems, once the printed text on a business card has been recognized by optical character recognition software, the text gets labeled according to one or more functions, for example, email address, name, organization, postal address, etc. Business card fields are often labeled using lexicographical information where text comprising names is identified using a dictionary and text comprising organizations is identified using a dictionary of organizations. However, electronic business card readers alone focus on capturing information from business cards and merely integrating the information into contact management software, such as Microsoft Outlook, and they do not integrate with document management and delivery software. Additionally, these systems do not integrate with multifunction devices.
One of the critical pieces of information obtained from the business card is an individual's contact information, for example, their email address. Accordingly, the possession of an email address allows the transfer of information to occur electronically with the information being transferred by sending it directly to a recipient's email address. In this process, the information typically needs to be scanned into a document which can then be forwarded as an attachment in an email.
Common methods of forwarding information via email include inputting a recipient's email address into a multifunction device prior to being able to send an email. An example of this process includes the use of a Xerox Corporation product, CenterWare® document management software. In this process, servers are utilized as a repository for templates that email documents. Another method of transferring information uses the Xerox product, FlowPort®. FlowPort requires that a coversheet be constructed at a FlowPort® website, printed and then used as a coversheet at a scanning device. Central in these and other current methods for sending documents via email is that some form of “set-up” must occur prior to being able to send an email, for example, entering an email address or completing a coversheet. Thus, a user is required to perform an “inputting” type activity where an email address needs to be entered or selected prior to emailing or transferring a document.
An example of emailing a business card of the prior art is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,722,574 to Skantze et al. This disclosure describes a business card where the information on the business card can be transferred to the recipient in digital format. Information is transmitted using a position-coding pattern, which is printed on the front and/or back of the business card. The business card holder's particulars are sent in a .vcf file, and an email may be put together with the business card holder's particulars and be sent to the business card recipient. However this disclosure merely discloses emailing the information on a business card to the business card holder for contact information management. This disclosure does not disclose the ability to email a document directly to the email address extracted from the business card particular, nor does it disclose being able to do so without entering the recipient's email address.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved method and system for transferring information to a recipient, whereby the recipient's contact information can be electronically extracted from a business document such as a business card, and the information transferred to the extracted email address.